San Francisco Power Outage Snarls Downtown

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A power outage struck a wide area of San Francisco on Friday, blacking out about 90,000 utility customers, snarling traffic as intersection signals went dark and stopping the famed cable cars for a time.

Pacific Gas & Electric crews were assessing the problem and there was no immediate estimate for restoration of electricity.

Media reports indicated that firefighters and utility crews were at a smoky fire at a substation, but there was no word on whether it was related to the outage.

“Power outage in the Northern & Central part of SF,” the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management tweeted, urging the public to refrain from calling 911 unless it was a life-safety issue.